


wolf

by The_Divine_Fool



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Dark, Drama, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Psychological, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21692944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Divine_Fool/pseuds/The_Divine_Fool
Summary: Kenny runs away.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zuotian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuotian/gifts).



> something a little different.

Nobody knew what kind of dog it was. Shepherd, they said. Some husky. It was black, and nothing more could be said on the matter. Not black with blue, not black with brown or gray or any alluring brush of color over it’s rippled spine. The dog was unbroken obsidian from the tips of its ears to its black, black nails.

His father called him “Blacky” for this reason but the dog had no name. Stuart drank. He beat on his wife, and when she wasn’t around he beat on the dog. 

He got a new girlfriend, eventually, a precariously overweight girl with obvious, attractive features and a little thing she called a _chihuahua_. The dog went into a crate then. And it stayed there, for days. And days. When it saw people it rushed the cage, bit at itself, and the bars. Sometimes it would have one of these fits when it was all alone, deranged and half-imbecile from enclosure. Finally the dog went calm and dull -- whining when anyone got close: _I’ll be good, I promise._ It ate whatever was thrown at it. Sores hardened on its hindlegs from sitting in its own fecal matter day after day.

Parents had a way of crooking you out of your childhood. 

Kenny grew into his father’s size when he was sixteen. Barely untucked from youth and stretched awkwardly between his hands and feet; long lines for arms and legs -- were they leading towards something, he wondered, or growing desperately to get _away?_

Elsewhere his mother complained and complained about the state of the dog, which was “hers” although it hadn’t earned a place on any legal document or provision having to do with the divorce, not even a note in the margins. And for all her words and grievances she didn’t do shit about it. Stuart’s girlfriend didn’t like the dog. She said he ought to leave it in the woods.

Kenny had an apartment, and one day, before anyone on the sunny side of the world could roll over or say one word to each other, he went back home and took the dog away with him. He didn’t know much about it; by the time his parents acquired the animal, Kenny was already a memory in the household, the way outgrown children are -- a runaway in all but the least, final step. 

It was two years old when he took it in, planning to find it a proper home among his friends or anyone interested. The dog wasn’t going to be _his_ problem, surely. He had enough of those. 

He took it to work with him. It stayed in the car when it wasn’t too warm or too cold, and he walked it every couple hours. He used it, really, because what other reason could you have to carve five minutes off your shift? Even if it was only to watch some poor dog romp and gnaw on the wintry Colorado air, so cold and so tight you could feel it shrinking in your lungs. 

He didn’t know dick’n caboodle about dogs, but they wrestled sometimes.

One night he was in the apartment. He’d had a little hit, but wasn’t that high, and they started to wrestle (Kenny had left the crate where it would stay -- forever, he thought, inside his childhood home). They were both nervous creatures. 

This time, at some point, they stopped playing; it started trying to kill him. The dog was dark and powerful and after only a few weeks at Kenny’s apartment had put on some weight; it was him against ninety-three pounds of snapping jaws and frothing houndsteeth and Kenny was caught fighting for his fucking life on no fuel but the drippings of a bare-assed blood-energy, caravans of lazy enzyme in his veins -- dopamine, adrenaline, and the nutrient-starved sludge he swallowed every day at work. 

It was late and other dogs were barking in his apartment building. Kenny didn’t grasp any sort of language behind all the noise, but while he fought for his life he thought how he and the black dog had achieved a sort of unriled synchronicity, together. Its teeth could bruise even during play -- you didn’t think of an animal having facial expressions, really, until it decided to defend itself.

The dog reared and one heavy mitt landed on his face like a punch. Kenny’s sinuses wheezed and leaked, and the next paw knocked the ring out of his nose. He opened his mouth and snarled like a fanatic or a furry on a wild fuck.

“If one of us has to die -- ” he said, working on barely a half-penny of spare breath. He slammed the dog on its back and squeezed his hands around its neck. “It’s not going to be me,” he decided, and pressed down mightily.

It lunged repeatedly for his throat, one gigantic muscle bent on murder, lips peeled back, eyes rolling. It wanted to kill him -- it probably thought it _had_ to -- and even while Kenny choked the shit out of the animal he thought how fucking depressing it was; like, all he’d wanted to do was _care_ for the dumb beast. He was worse than his father.

The noise died down. The dog whimpered, whined -- and Kenny did the very last thing on his mind: he let go. He lifted his hands and the dog walked itself into a corner and sat there. Kenny walked into a corner, and he sat there, heaving. 

After a while, he got up and puttered around at human tasks. He divided his clothes into piles, one for the laundromat, one for the trash. He did some dishes in his Hobbit-sized kitchenette, never looking at the dog. But he could feel it there, still, staring at him. 

Night leaked in through the shutters. A naked cold lay over the floorboards. Not every mess could be rinsed off and tucked away so easily. 

At length Kenny ran out of things to occupy himself, and he looked at the dog. It bowed its head and streaked over to him. Kenny sunk his fingers into its neck ruff, scratched its butt. He stroked his ears, and the dog tipped its head. Kenny finished his hit, and went to bed.

That night he had a dream of leaving the apartment, and running to the woods. He sank into deep-winter drifts untouched by boot or plow, and he ran from the growl of the city, ran and ran and never grew tired. The snow cut all the way to his knees and elbows and soon his feet and hands went numb; his fluid black skin shone with pebbles of snow, and still he flew through the wood under a steep solarium sky -- running ragged and half-formed, filled to the brim on crystal light and the faint taste of old memories, but lacking the words to describe either thought or sensation. 

“Wolf.”

Kenny started. A french fry bounced off his nose. “Huh,” he muttered. 

“Did you hear what I said?”

Kenny surveyed his blunt-tipped fingers and tried to remember who won the fight. Every time he found himself at work he tried to eat the most benign thing on the menu, but even the kids’ meals had a sort of sick gooey quality to them. Put the work in, he thought, and all you might get is an employee discount on your next value meal -- pretty rich, on a wage that didn’t even pay his rent. 

“They found that Thompson kid. Barely anything left. I heard they sent him home in a shoebox.”

Kenny took a swig from his drink. It was the same barely edible goo, just a little colder. The street-lamps outside shone a sort of gassy green. Someone had written _fuck you!_ on the window with an oily fingertip. A homeless woman sat under the community bulletin board asking for spare change, not louder than the colored posters advertising holiday deals over her head: bluetooth headphones, flat screen TVs, little robots that cleaned and mopped your floor. _This Season, Get What You Deserve,_ said one, featuring an image of two smiling white people wearing Blue Nile diamonds.

“ _My_ question is,” said Eric, sitting back and stretching his arms over the booth. His knees rustled the underside of the table and everything clattered. “What kinda animal chows down on something nasty as Rat Thompson? I’d eat a whole _gar_ bage bag full of Thai side-dishes before going to town on that turd-burglar.”

“Finally moved your shit out your dad’s place, huh?” He continued. There were bags under his eyes, champion all-nighter purple. “Ya think he’ll miss you?”

Cartman grinned at his own question. “Naw. He’ll find someone new to beat on. Fuckers like him always do.” He paused. The food in front of him was decimated but he took stock of the wreckage anyway. “You ever get tired of it? I mean -- didn’t you ever wanna hit the stringy bastard back?”

Kenny lifted one shoulder halfway to a shrug. He barely had the energy to fight himself anymore. 

“What’d you bring your bag for, anyway?” He went on, and sucked loudly on his empty drink. “You look packed for a fucking blizzard.” 

“Huh?” Kenny saw his backpack on the bench beside him. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Where are you gonna be tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Cartman stretched his arm out and knocked his hood down. His hand lingered, stroked his ear, and Kenny tipped his head. He grinned again. “That’s what I like about you, McCormick.”


End file.
